Silicon City

San Francisco is changing at warp speed. Famously home to artists and activists, and known as the birthplace of the Beats, the Black Panthers and the LGBTQ movement, in recent decades the Bay Area has been reshaped by Silicon Valley, the engine of the new American economy. The richer the region gets, the more unequal and less diverse it becomes, and cracks in the city’s facade―rapid gentrification, an epidemic of evictions, rising crime, atrophied public institutions―have started to show. Inspired by Studs Terkel’s classic works of oral history, writer and filmmaker Cary McClelland spent several years interviewing people at the epicenter of the recent change, including venture capitalists, coders, politicians, protesters as well as native sons and daughters to the city’s newest arrivals. The crisp and vivid stories of Silicon City’s diverse cast capture San Francisco as never before.

MLF ORGANIZER NAME

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

Speakers

Cary McClelland

Author, Silicon City

In Conversation with Lenny Mendonca

Chief Economic and Business Advisor and Director of the Office of Business and Economic Development, State of California; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Moderator

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